Summer of the Seals Competition

August 27, 2011

This was the day that I had been training for for the last 12 weeks. I exercised 6 days a week and most days twice a day. I had to learn to swim, run, do push-up, and sit-ups. I didn't even try the pull-ups due to an injured tendon in my elbow. Each event had tiers for points. In the beginning I wanted to get the minimum points for each event. Reality hit and I decided that the fact that I was going to complete this event would be good enough.

Mark and I drove to Houston on Friday night. We left the kids at home.

We arrived at the pool where the event would take place at 6:30am on Saturday morning. My nerves were not being nice to me. (I didn't sleep well and couldn't eat much for breakfast) I had never done anything like this before. I didn't know quite what to expect. I was so glad that Mark was there with me.

Then my sisters showed up (and my mom). We have so much fun together and the support is amazing.

We had to report our practice swim times and that was what determined our start time. Of our group, Bonnie got to go first, then Stephenie, then Mark, then Evan and then me. I wanted to be towards the end of the pack so that I would have to pass or get passed in the pool.


My practice swim time was right at 18 minutes for 500 meters. On race day I did it in 17.02 minutes. I cut almost a minute off of my time. I didn't get any point in swimming for my team but I did my best. Next year, I hope to be able to swim the whole thing freestyle and get my time a little faster. I will also train in an outdoor pool next year so that the Houston pool water temperature won't be such a shock to my system. I didn't know you could actually tell you were sweating in pool water.

Then came a 10 minute break. We had that time to change clothes and go to the next station for push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups. They had told us previously that there would not be a changing area and that we needed to stay modest in changing. Mark thought about bringing a pop-up hunting blind. Some others did bring changing tents. We managed.

I had practiced all summer learning to do a real push-up. I got up to 16 at home. When it came to race day, it was much harder than I thought it would be. I was only able to do 11.

I quit before my time was up because I knew I couldn't get to the next tier for points.

Then a 2 minute break and off to sit-ups. I had Bonnie hold my feet for me. She had already completed the whole race and was cheering the rest of us on. I did 26. The minimum for points was 25.

Now it was time for another 10 minute break and then the run. Matthew had put some of my music on an ipod for me so that I could use that while running. It wasn't my ipod and I didn't know how to use the nano. I ended up with Spanish music and didn't know how to change it. I knew most of the songs since that is what Mark listens to.


Bonnie came in 3rd overall for the women's division. She also tied for 1st in pull-ups.

Our team came in 4th place. We did awsome!

Our Summer of the Seals Family

Becky (Stephenie and Evan's sister in law), Stephenie, Evan, Mark, Dorias, & Bonnie